Tuesday, 3 February 2015

The Pendle Witch Child

My new
novel – The Pendle Curse – has some
of its roots in a true story. In August 1612, ten men and women were convicted,
in Lancaster, England, of crimes related to witchcraft and subsequently hanged
on Gallows Hill. They became known to history as the Pendle Witches. The trial
was faithfully and uniquely (for the time) recorded by clerk of the court,
Thomas Potts and then published in his book, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster.

One
factor of the case has resonated down the years for reasons which could not
have been foreseen at the time. Eighty years later – in 1692 – in a town
thousands of miles from the wild, rugged Lancashire countryside, another trial
took place. In Salem, Massachusetts.

Here,
between June and September, nineteen men and women were carted off to be hanged
at a location also known as Gallows Hill, but the name of their place of
execution wasn’t the only thing the two sets of trials had in common.

In both
trials, the testimony of a child was crucial to the success of the prosecution.
The Lancashire Witch trials broke new ground in allowing and conducting
testimony from an under- age minor. In Salem, they had Mr Potts’s handbook on
how to do it.

It is not
certain how old Jennet Device was when she testified against her mother,
brother and sister, as well as their friends and their bitter rivals. She is
variously recorded as having been nine, eleven or thirteen but, by all
accounts, she was under the age of fourteen - until then seen as the youngest
permissible age at which reliable testimony could be allowed in court.

The women
in her family were the local ‘wise women’ of the area. Their knowledge of herbs
and ability to fashion ‘cures’ for ailments of both animals and humans, made
them a meagre income, which they supplemented with begging, but their bitter
rivals were another family – Anne Whittle (known as Chattox, for her chattering
teeth) and her daughter Anne Redferne. Each family had their own set of clients
and woe betide anyone if they stole one of them. Whether these families had
special powers or not, they certainly seem to have believed they did. Under the witch-hating King James I, they laid
themselves wide open to accusations of witchcraft, but none could have
suspected their chief accuser would come from within their own ranks.

When
questioned by the judge as to Jennet’s age, Roger Nowell responded that she was
“old enough”.

At the
trial, Jennet could not be heard over the rowdy audience. Nor could she be
seen, as she was so small. A table was brought in and she stood on it before pointing
her finger, as directed by the chief prosecutor - the ambitious local magistrate,
Roger Nowell. When prompted, Jennet said, "My mother is a witch and that I
know to be true. I have seen her spirit in the likeness of a brown dog, which
she called Ball. The dog did ask what she would have him do and she answered
that she would have him help her to kill.”

She
then went on to give evidence of a witches’ sabbat, allegedly held on Good
Friday of 1612. “At 12 noon about 20 people came to our house - my mother told
me they were all witches."

Her
mother screamed out that the child didn’t know what she was saying and then
rounded on Jennet herself. The child demanded her mother be removed from the
court. Then Jennet continued with her testimony and condemned all her remaining
family – with the exception of little William – to the gallows.

Why
would she do such a thing? We will never know for sure of course. She may have
been the only illegitimate child in the family (although she did have a younger
brother) and something of an outcast. Maybe she was exacting revenge. We cannot
discount the influence of Roger Nowell who may have persuaded her that this was
the only way to save herself from a similar fate to that of her family.

Whatever
her motivation, Jennet disappeared from history - only to reappear in 1633 when
she herself stood accused of crimes relating to witchcraft. In a bitter twist
of fate, she was accused at her trial (along with sixteen others) by a ten year
old boy - Edmund Robinson. The precedent she had unwittingly set came back to
haunt her.

Jennet
was found guilty and imprisoned in Lancaster Castle, where her family had been.
But times had changed and the verdict was overturned by the Privy Council some
time later. Edmund Robinson admitted her had lied, saying he had been
influenced by accounts of the Pendle Witch trials. Jennet was free to leave
prison – except for one overriding problem. Guilty or innocent, prisoners had
to pay for their board, or must remain incarcerated until they could. For
Jennet this would have been impossible. She was last heard of in 1636. Still in
prison.

Now, here’s the blurb for The
Pendle Curse:

Four hundred years ago, ten convicted witches
were hanged on Gallows Hill. Now they are back…for vengeance.

Laura
Phillips’s grief at her husband’s sudden death shows no sign of passing. Even
sleep brings her no peace. She experiences vivid, disturbing dreams of a dark,
brooding hill, and a man—somehow out of time—who seems to know her. She
discovers that the place she has dreamed about exists. Pendle Hill. And she
knows she must go there. But as soon as she arrives, the dream becomes a
nightmare. She is caught up in a web of witchcraft and evil…and a curse that
will not die.

Here’s a short extract from the beginning:

His
spirit soared within him and flew up into the storm-clad sky as blackness
descended and the rain became a tempest.

He flew.
Lost in a maelstrom of swirling mists. Somewhere a baby cried until its sobs
became distorted, tortured roars. Beyond, a black void loomed. He saw Alizon’s
spirit just ahead and tried to call out to her, but his voice couldn’t reach
her.

Beside
him, another spirit cried out. His mother. He flinched at her screams before
they were drowned in the mass—that terrible parody of some hideous child.

The
blackness metamorphosed. An amorphous shape formed as his eyes struggled to see
with their new vision—the gift of death. Small baby limbs flailed towards him.
Eyes of fire flashed as a toothless mouth opened. Screeching, roaring and
demanding to be fed. Demanding its mother.

His spirit reached out for his lover. Tried to
pull her back. “Alizon!”

She
turned anguished eyes to him. “It calls to me.”

He
recognized it instantly. The blazing fire. The devil child. That cursed infant
had come for them.

Again he
reached out with arms that no longer felt connected to him, but he was
powerless to stop Alizon being swept away, deep into the abomination’s maw.

“No!” His
cry reverberated around him—a wail of anguish in a sea of torment.

Then…silence.
Only he remained, drifting in swirling gray mists of time.

“I will
find you, sweet Alizon. One day I will find you. And I will find the one who
betrayed us.”